"You must be older than Comedy Central to drink in this establishment."

Everybody say yo Whitney yo Whitney yo

"You must be older than the 'Welcome Home Heroes' concert to drink in this establishment."

Man, coming on the heels of her too-soon passing, this really brings me down, actually.  Maybe this is irreverent of me, but this mashup actually makes me remember more of the silver-lining half:

Also, too, Robyn.

Who's biting my style this time? (credit where due file)

One of my absolute favorite Twitterers---tweeterers? twits? (I made that joke before Jon Stewart, so I'm not letting go)---which is to say, one of the perhaps three people whose 140-character offerings don't inspire me to hurl my laptop across the room (which, I discovered the hard way, does void the warranty).... uh, I forgot where I thought this sentence was going.  Anyway, Smethanie appears to have had the same bright idea that inspired this whole endeavor:

She's not buying into the whole birthdate conceit employed here, which would have resulted in this being posted last November, but still.  I'm honored by the association, which to be fair was entirely unintended and would probably provoke a bitter renunciation if, you know, anyone actually read this thing.

Edith is a girl's name

"Happy 21st birthday, kids conceived after a date involving the movie Ghost Dog!"

"Oh, I loved that film!  Forest Whitaker's awesome, and---wait, no.  It's actually... Ghost Dad."

"Oh dear.  Well, drink up, kids.  If your parents really could reach a state of arousal after that, I'm guessing you had a real permissive upbringing.  So let me explain a few house rules we got about not shrieking like a howler monkey when you want to get the bartender's attention."

"Teetotaling and prayer"

Hey, look at that---Annie's arrival at Twin Peaks is old enough to drink!

Man, Heather Graham.  She's the Grover Cleveland in my list of Reigning Screen Übercrushes, the only one to serve non-consecutive terms.  About this time she would have knocked... Elizabeth Shue, I'm guessing, out of number one, and as Rollergirl managed the unthinkable feat of making me forget all about Jill Hennessy.

Sigh.

"Syd, here's the pitch: You get locked in overnight in a Target with Jennifer Connelly..."

"You must be older than Career Opportunities to drink in this establishment."

Politics non-Friday

Oh, for the love of.... hangon, count to ten.

Alright, this blog is of a decidedly non-political nature; those of you who want my political writing likely already know where to find it.  But as the conditions under which people get pregnant and enter the world are (at least nominally) associated with this blog's explicit topic, kindly indulge this rant:

EVERY DECISION SOMEONE MAKES IN HOW TO RAISE HIS OR HER CHILD IS NOT AN OCCASION FOR YOU TO CHIME AND SAY "WELL, ACTUALLY."

I want to begin with an observation, often enough made but seemingly never realized, that writing about parenting is the best way to ensure a flood of hate mail yet discovered under the sun.  Take the example of Lenore Skenazy, barraged with letters and emails for the (perfectly safe) way her kid gets to school.  Take Amy Chua, who if memory serves generated the most-commented article on WSJ's site for sharing how she disciplines her (by all appearances happy and well-adjusted, if perhaps a bit serious) daughters.  Hell, a guy shot someone in the head because he thought he shouldn't be taking his kid on bike rides.  Take Dan Savage last week, finding it necessary to opine that women who breast-feed past a few months are weird.

Well, yeah, it's "weird."  It's also weird to feel so shameful of breastfeeding you cut it off early.  It's weird to hand them off to a nanny they'll see more than their mother; it's weird to give up the mother's entire outside life the moment her water breaks.  It's weird to send them to daycare; it's weird to send them to Catholic school; it's weird to home school.  It's weird to keep them in diapers; it's weird to potty train.  It's all weird.

To digress slightly into constitutional law, every January 22nd (wonder what I put up that day, actually), a group of weirdos will congregate in front of the Supreme Court to protest its decision in Roe v. Wade, and to the uninitiated it may actually seem said weirdos make a strong argument when they say the privacy right including the right to abortion is not to be found within the text of the Constitution.  What they don't follow up to add---in addition to naming the law school that they didn't go to---is that for a century the Supreme Court has recognized a constellation of rights around family decisions, including how to raise your children and whether even to have children.  I think of it as Lockean in its logic (the family unit logically antedates the state; therefore, the state can regulate the public sphere but not invade the sphere of the family), but many different narratives are possible to justify this.  The upshot is that if you don't think the Constitution contains a privacy right against the government forbidding abortion, you also don't think there's a right against the government compelling abortion, and if you really think that's the right outcome, please do yourself a favor and put down the Kaplan LSAT guide right now.

Okay, to twist the conversation uncomfortably back to the present.  Someone else's decisions whether to get married, whether and how to have sex, and with whom, whether to have children and how to raise them, are all none of your business.  If your interest in the question is motivated by a desire to receive cards beginning "dear grandma," we make an accommodation for you in pretending it's partially your business, but that is merely a convenient fiction.  They're all personal decisions; they involve considerations of other people, which no matter how well you know them you can't possibly appreciate as well as they can; and due consideration of other people's autonomy entails letting them live their got-damn lives already.

Here's the part of the argument that I don't think gets made often enough:  Keeping your damn nose out of it is for your benefit, as well.  Other people's sexual habits are going to seem weird to you.  Other people's relationships aren't going to make sense to you.  Other people are going to want and to do things---as well as to not want and not do things---that seem preposterously bizarre.  If you really were to take the time to judge the personal decisions even your closest friends made, you'd be overwhelmed.  In the internet age, when you have available the personal decisions of your one billion closest friends, it would drive you positively insane.

So be a grown-up.  Save yourself the madness.  Learn to say, "Whatever gets you through middle school, man."

"I said hello, you fool, I love you"

"You must be older than Joyride to drink in this establishment."

Now, I know the responsible thing to do is to warn these new drinkers about the dangers of actually going on a joyride, especially if they've been enjoying their new civil liberty to the point of intoxication, but frankly I can't be bothered.  And something tells me they would have been Ron Paul voters, anyway, so... you know.  Maybe's'all for the best.

Hard to believe that just fame, money, and a public image as a bad boy with throbbing biceps could get you so many chicks

"Happy 21st birthday, first kids conceived to Lucifuge!"

"Now go, do my wicked bidding!  ... um, I don't know.  Some magazines, maybe?  I'm kind of bored."

To Be With You

"You must be older than... this, to drink in this establishment."

Best fucking films

"You must be older than Martin Scorcese getting shafted the second time to drink in this establishment."

Hey, why not?

And a generation of lazy morning deejays rejoiced

"You must be older than this version[fn1] of 'Don't Let the Sun...' to drink in this establishment."

"Hey, Tony and the Cooter, what do you think we change the lyrics to 'your son' going down on me?  Mega-lulz, amirite?"

-----

fn1:  The song predates its 1991 performance, but this was the one that made heavy rotation where I lived.  I'm guessing where you lived, too.  

"You must be older than the presumed newsworthiness of a grown man who goes by 'the undertaker' to drink in this establishment."

Sorry, folks, they can't all be winners.  And if they're not winners... well....  Anyway, slow week in history.

"Mo-hurrr thannnn wu-hurrrrrrds!"

"You must be older than this treakly bit of vomit to drink in this establishment."

"How'd you die, sir?" "On stage, like you"

"You must be older than Defending Your Life to drink in this establishment."

Hey man, where you get that strat?

From this guy:

"You gotta have breathed some of the same air as Leo Fender to drink in this establishment."

"By the pricking of my thumbs"---oh, wait, not those ones?

"You gotta be older than... uhh, hangon." <shuffles papers>  "Older than the Weird Sisters?  Man, even I don't remember those guys.  But the Reavers already happened; hell, even Jubilee's close to 23 now."

"Putting it a different way, you gotta be older than what's been unbeknownst to me all this time open season on America's Christians.  Quiet down, boychik, or we'll do you the same way we did your Lord."

Also, who knew Honkers were Jewish?

"You must be older than Yo-Yo to drink in this establishment."

Umm... no.  This one:

Erin go Bleargh < /lazyjoke>

I really got nothing today, so Happy St. Pat's, and happy birthday to Chris, Catherine, and a special happy birthday to Red Sox 2004 hero Bill Mueller!

"I believe in leprechauns, and I believe I'll have another. But I don't believe in that."

"You must be older than the ban on gays at the Saint Patrick's Day parade to drink in this establishment."

An air of silence, in the bedroom, and all around

"Happy 21st birthday, kid conceived to #1 song 'It Must Have Been Love'!"

Oh, but he's old enough to ruin all of David Lee Roth's fine work, huh?

"You must be older than... wait, really?"

"Van Halen's bassist can't drink yet?  Christ, I gotta go sit down."
(pic source)

Go-go, gadget coat---no, wait... how's that go?

"Happy 21st birthday, kid conceived on a date to see Dick Tracy!"

I still find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that Stephen Sondheim scored it.  It's like Saul Bellow scripting the third Batman movie, the one with Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze.

Heh... okay, that's going to distract me for a bit.  "I am an American, Chicago born---ice to see you!"

"You must be older than If Looks Could Kill to drink in this establishment."

Hey! you! Grieco!  Hands off.  I saw her first.

(Seriously, if you don't recognize her yet, she's going to be making a lot of appearances on this blog, assuming I keep it up.  Le sigh.)

Satellite

"You must be older than the Dave Matthews Band to drink in this establishment.  Or at least their live act.  Which is the worst thing about them, really, if you think about it, and if you don't count their albums."

I don't... I don't really have anything to say about Dave Matthews.  Other than I don't like them, so here's Lou Reed:

(Also, happy birthday, Ned!)

Mariah Carey's kinda scary

Happy twenty-first birthday, first kid conceived to a Mariah Carey record!

Nope, not doing one.  It makes me feel too old.  You want a reference, here's Big (title ref at 0:40).

Seriously.  Sorry, not doing it.

... I said no.

Goddammit.  Fine.

Happy birthday, you saccharine overproduced lovechild.  The legend says your coming foretells the end times, when all human emotion is available only via a $0.99 Amazon.com MP3 download.

Throw your love around / Happy, happy

"You must be older than Out of Time to drink in this establishment."

I actually vaguely remember having the cassette labeled "time" on one side and "memory" on the other.  Kind of funny to think about albums back then, and how they positively did not anticipate that everyone would be listening to all their music on a shuffle setting some ten years or so later.

Dunnh-DAH! dunnh-DAH! dunnanunnaNUNNAnunnAH!

"You must be older than this song to drink in this establishment."

I'm still debating whether this is a guilty pleasure or a hidden treasure.

"How many times can I tell you? It's not 'uhn-tiss uhn-tiss uhn-tiss,' it's 'uhn-tiss uhn-tiss uhn-tiss'!"

"You must be older than the Paul Van Dyk era to drink in this establishment."

(Okay, I'm approximating; I can't find the date more precisely than the month.)

How fast was he? Faster than that

Happy 21st birthday, first kids of the post-Cool Papa Bell era.  Check out the stories at that link, particularly him scoring on a Satchel Paige bunt---from first.

Blink and you'd miss him... twenty-one years ago, sadly, you didn't even need to blink.

It's kind of like what crack did to Pookie, in New Jack

"You must be older than New Jack City to drink in this establishment."

"I said I'm real sorry, but that didn't cut it"

"You must be older than 'Deep Deep Trouble' to drink in this establishment."

I'm not going to go nuts and call it DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's finest contribution, but it's definitely on the highlight reel.

"In essence what I'm saying is that society cannot afford to lose me. I'm an asset."

"You must be older than American Psycho to drink in this establishment."

I honestly never got the appeal, but the market has spoken, so evidently America's craving some Ellis.  Interesting trivia tidbit:  Fellow lit brat Jay McInerney once dated Rielle Hunter, who's now somewhat better known as the mother of John Edwards's lovechild.

Out of the horrors of war might come new momentum for peace, or at least a bitchin' bassline

"You must be older than the New World Order to drink in this establishment."

"Uhhh, no.  Not the cool one.  The, uh, other one."

Walk right up to the microphone and name

"You must be older than Kill Uncle to drink in this establishment."

Well, I did warn you of my homerism.

When we didn't just get along

"You must be older than the Rodney King beating to drink in this establishment."

I don't really... have anything, actually.  These days "don't taze me bro" is a punchline and Casually Pepper Spray Cop is a meme, but as I recall it, among the white people in really comfortable neighborhoods, the revelation that police could behave this way was a horror.  The fact that it was a horror, of course, didn't make it any better at the time, but from this repose it seems to reflect an innocence this country has lost.

Matter of fact, let me change that line up top:  "You must be older than the birth of the sneaking suspicion that institutionalized brutality was not actually the momentary failure of the rule of law in America, but rather its very point, to drink in this establishment.  And christ, I think we both need one."

"Aw tick-tock you don' stahh-stahh-stahh"

"You must be older than 'I Wanna Sex You Up' to drink in this establishment."  

Wait, you know what---I think this version is actually warranted, here:

So much better, no?  Still can't believe Color Me Badd were from Oklahoma City.  I mean, when I think of unrestrained masculinity and sexy urban cooool, I think of the OKC, sure.  But it just seems so uncanny.